Unsung
by not-here-leave-a-message
Summary: "It was why she accepted her fate, accepting the crack of her skull as she accepted her role in rebellion. A cog in the machine. A death in the Hunger Games." One-shot


**Why hello there! I've just finished reading this beautiful selection of books, though this fic came before (and is actually the reason) I read the Hunger Games. Fear not! I finished the trilogy before posting it here, as I wanted it set in the book-verse. I hope I did it justice, but it's been a few months since I read the first book, do bear with me! **

**That being said, this entire thing was inspired by The Clove Conspiracy Theory, which can be found on pinterest with this extension:**

_ /pin/198439927301356826/_

**That's not the original poster as far as I am aware, and I apologize to whoever is, as I don't know who he or she is so I cannot give him/her credit, but whoever is awakened the conspirator in me, and my curiosity, so I began to wonder, and thus, I began to write.**

**That being said, I hope you all enjoy it. I don't own the Hunger Games, I probably never will, but thankfully, there is fanfiction, and this story is my own (even though and especially since the characters, original conspiracy idea, and setting are not!)**

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She didn't really know why. What did it. Couldn't pinpoint the exact reason, and even when she tried, stopped everything she was doing to focus, thought long and hard in that space between lying down and actually sleeping in her bed at Academy, she could never think of why, exactly. The more she thought, the cloudier it got. It was easier to not think. It was easier to be.

She'd never traveled outside of her District. Never went further than its fence. Never cared to go further (not that she could), never met a wayward traveler, never knew a relative who bothered to wander; never cared to talk to anyone at the train station, never cared for the scarce books about the other Districts. They were merely others. Stupid others, but others nonetheless.

And she had no need for them. And so, she concluded, it wouldn't, couldn't have been, an outside source. New information from an "other".

She had grown up knowing her life, the one that awaited her. Raised in the bloodthirsty heat of the Hunger Games, told of the glory, taught how to fight before she could read. Encouraged to kill, to root for the death of other children as her family watched with devouring eyes the blood projected on the wall. She could feel their adrenaline pumping in her veins and she knew: this was where she belonged. Violence was all she knew, all she learned. To kill, kill, kill. Hunt, slaughter, stab. She learned and grew and learned. Liked and breathed the thick haze of bloodlust until it was everything, watched her neighbors and friends grow with her, learn with her.

It was all she cared to know. She understood death on the terms that were given: an end. The End. For all of her competition, for all those against her.

Never for herself.

In all of their role plays of the Games, all of their childish rules and "death" matches, in all of their fights, she won. And if she didn't, if she died, she kept on living, rising from the ground, bent on revenge. In all of the actual Hunger Games, she pictured herself as delivering the final blow, a harbinger of death and pride. By brick, knife, fist. Whatever the victor used, she used, watching and mimicking , rewatching and redoing until the blows were second nature, the moves a part of her basic functions. Until she was as much of a killer as those sent to the Games, and even more so.

On the rare occasions that she lost, or watched as a tribute became a victim, a tribute who all those watching had assumed victorious, she readily sprung up again, deciding herself undefeated and undead, ready to restart her training. Ready to start her career.

She knew what she was signing up for when she was accepted at Academy. She knew the thrills that awaited her, the guts, the glory. The sacrifice, literal blood, sweat, and tears, and eventually…the greatness. She knew, and even in the very depths of her bones, she could not wait.

Her family applauded and she left at such a young age. Not the youngest, but she didn't mind. They were no threat.

But it didn't matter. Wouldn't matter, because she was destined for glory. She was ready.

She had the drive, and the arrogance, and she fought with both. She learned, studied. Anatomy, physics, geography, martial arts. With each new year came a new lesson, each new lesson learned in combat. Each new Hunger Games a new opportunity. And she wasn't even old enough yet.

Because from the time she was born she was raised in violence. Raised with not the need or desire to be the victor, but with the knowledge and understanding that to be anything else meant absolute failure. To spill one's own blood, even if it meant certain death to one's opponent, was not good enough, and she was reared knowing that. Feeling it at her core, comprehending it in her very essence. Born with the knowledge, even. What little childhood she had was saturated with the knowledge of life and death…but never the understanding.

She knew what life was, besides tearing down those who may stand in the way. Besides killing other children for the glory of herself. She understood the functions of life, the vital toils that allowed a person to be alive, to survive, to live. And she knew how to incapacitate them, in more and more intricate ways, as time went on and her lessons at the Academy grew in number. Up close, at a distance, with a weapon or without…typically with, a certain emphasis placed on specialization in weaponry. She was horrid with an arrow, unless right next to her target, wherein she didn't need a bow, merely a strong striking arm. Her hand-to-hand was formidably lethal, made all the more so as she rose in the ranks at Academy, a quick study. "And eager student, happy to kill. Positively bloodthirsty!"

But she found her true love, and natural ability, with her sharp eye and short knives. They fit in her small hands perfectly, short, like herself, and cold, unfeeling. Sharp and lethal and underestimated, requiring a great amount of skill, a challenge in their own right that she just couldn't refuse. Her only true friends, never betraying her, always obeying, finding their targets and satisfying that deep need, that insatiable itch for blood. Because blood meant victory, and her sharp friends meant blood, most definitely. It all spelled out glory.

So it was with great thrill that she eavesdropped on her superiors discussing her progress and possibilities, when she was finally of age. She knew she would be tapped, if not that year, then soon. It was expected, even among her classmates, who looked on with envy, all raised with the same remorselessness, all raised with the required talents, and all vying for the spot she had cinched. Would cinch. It was with gloating pride that she and a few others ruled over their Academy peers, and it was with great bitterness she found herself at the fence of her District, looking out into nothing, wondering. Why she hadn't been tapped to volunteer that year. How she could easily have taken down the girl they had decided to ask to volunteer, despite their years age difference, their several inch height difference, and their seventy-five pound weight difference. And it was with worsening bitterness that she replayed in her head all the matches she had lost. All the training fights. All the competitions.

It was with despair, bitter and angry, that she wondered, vaguely, what was beyond the fence. Other Districts, obviously. There were twelve, after all.

She wondered what was beyond that, beyond those Districts. She'd heard other Districts didn't even have Academy, which would explain why they almost always seemed to lose. Stupid other Districts.

She wondered, briefly, how far she would get beyond the fence. If she would even get somewhere, the landscape vast and beyond the stretches of the district, rough and untamed. But still, even if she could, just run from her failure, to run from all of those annoying underlings, just go, would she make it? She hardly even made it to the fence, so far from the inner workings of District 2, over rocky hills and through uninviting (even threatening) landscape, so far as to not even be there, long forgotten by the residents, if they had ever known or suspected its presence in the first place.

And then she saw the signs, and wondered what it was to die.

They warned of high voltage, and the Capitol certainly would not risk a non-lethal shock to anyone attempting to best the fence and escape, for if they made it that far, surely they were determined. Touching the wires would mean certain death. Had to mean certain death, and it was with a tingling jolt that she wondered what it would be like. A spark of feral curiosity and she reached out, hand outstretched, naked and susceptible. She could describe, in great detail, what would happen physically. The shock would travel through her, seizing every muscle in her body, including her heart, causing it to stop. Stopping blood flow, stopping oxygenation. Ending her life. But…

What did that mean?

She realized that she didn't know, and stared as her hand, a centimeter from closing around death, before quickly snatching it back, heart kick-starting in her chest, breath returning in a short burst. She hadn't even realized she'd been holding it.

She walked away, found a spot, and sat down, the neurons in her brain firing, synapses causing chemical reactions, allowing her to think, create thought.

She supposed that, somehow, somewhere, there were those who believed in a life after life. A place. But that seemed absurd. She couldn't fathom such a stupid notion, the mind, consciousness, whatever, was a billion, trillion, infinite number of electrical impulses in the brain, which thrived from oxygen carried in the blood, kept clean by the liver, pumped by the heart to every muscle, every organ, which all took chemical and electrical signals from the brain and nerves in order to move, in order to function, in order to create a suitable body, a suitable brain, in which a mind could flourish. Everything was co-dependent. Everything was interconnected: a complex, interdependent railway which she knew how to dismantle at many, if not all, points. There was no room for that which could not be disconnected and sent elsewhere, it was preposterous. There was no "other", there was only life, and the Hunger Games, and glory, except…

Except if there wasn't. And if there wasn't, there was death…there was…the end.

That had to be where it started. Something inside of her broke, and she hadn't been able to fix it.

Hadn't tried all that hard.

The fear that gripped her at the realization, the horrible awe, turned swiftly to anger as she trained. How…could they?! How could they take children, so young, so innocent, and train them, turn them into killers, just like that? Fill their lives with violence and nothing else, no love, no true life, only the hunt?!

She knew the reasoning, had learned the stories, knew the pages in her history book like the back of her hand. Could recite the Treaty of Treason on command. But the more she thought on it, the less sense it made. What did they prove? What did it prove? She read her history books again. Began paying attention in the dull lectures. Watched closely the programming in the two weeks leading up to the Hunger Games, watched as the Districts showed off their tributes. Tried to fight down the bile in her throat as she began to realize what these people were, who they were and who they had been to her, who they were to her as they talked with Caesar, and she realized…nothing. These people, all twenty-four, even the two she knew, were nothing. Insignificant pawns playing a game for the amusement of a sick audience, watching the end for pleasure. Insignificant people, distant players in a far land. They had no life. So of what significance was it to end it? She had to force the thoughts from her mind, reminding herself that each person there had a mind, separate from her own. But very much alive. And for the first time ever, as the deathblow was delivered, she watched the victim. She did not mimic the victor.

And as she watched twenty-three lives end again, right before her eyes, and the eyes of all in Panem, she decided it had to stop.

But it couldn't, wouldn't, and she knew it. She felt like an outsider in her own world, only going through the motions as her mind worked overtime. She took the time to stay behind after combat lessons, or not think on her own strategy while waiting in line, and observe those around her. Children. Some as young as six, probably. Holding weapons, war-torn glory shining in their eyes and on their red cheeks, blood thirst lubricating the cogs of their young brains. A hunger for glory they believed themselves destined for, at the hands of twenty-three dead tributes. And they honestly believed themselves undefeatable. Better prepared. Immortal. Ready.

But they were not ready to die, and they were not even aware of that. Would perhaps never be aware of it, and the thought turned her guts into billowing waves of acid, and she responded in the only way she knew how: violence.

Everyone was impressed. Especially Cato, one of her best friends, who congratulated her, and, if she was receiving the right vibes, had started to like her. Something she had wanted, though less than winning at training drills, since she had met Cato.

But they no longer fit, and despair made a small appearance as Cato slapped her on the back and welcomed her back, having been one of the few who had sensed a change in her. Even actively seeking her out to ask what was wrong. To which she lied, over and over, until it was such second nature to be this hollow version of the Clove pacing inside, a caged animal, scared and alone and angry. The more she lied, the more her need for Cato's attention lessened. She didn't want to lie to him. Didn't want him to realize she was lying to him.

But she knew she couldn't tell him, watched his blind hunt for violence, and knew he wouldn't understand. Think her insane. But she couldn't avoid him, either, and her lies began folding over themselves, curling around her and creating the violent, arrogant persona everyone knew and loved, even if they hated it, thus solidifying her legacy among her peers and her superiors.

In fact, she couldn't tell anyone her true thoughts. How winning at the hands of a tyrant was losing, and losing was death. To win was to watch those around you die, to watch those who come after you die, to know that there were thousands before you who died. To know and watch generations grow up, trained to be killers and nothing else. To win was to lose your own childhood, or child, if you survived. To win brought nothing, and to lose brought even less.

Yet still people sought to win. People devoted their entire lives to it. People died, never having lived a life outside of training for the arena, outside of murder, outside of ending a competitor.

It was destructive. Controlling…horrible.

Her anger and fear translated to excellence in her training, in everything that she did. So when she was finally tapped to volunteer for the Hunger Games, she was not surprised. Only resigned.

For she knew it was her only chance to make a difference, or die trying. And she wasn't stupid, she knew there was nothing she could do. Not on her own, and who in Panem could she get on her side?

No one. She had been a part of the life for so long, she had no illusions as to how they thought, acted. Were. And she had been pretending so long because in her heart, in her moments of blind optimism, she allowed herself to believe the impossible: that she could actually do something. Anything. Tear down the games, force people to see, call attention to the things going on and get enough people to care.

But the more she watched, the closer she paid attention, the more she realized that all the spectators already knew. About the training, the poverty, the "free will" seared into their brains from such a young age, free to pray to make it to the Hunger Games. Free to kill. And nothing else. They simply didn't care. And everyone else was held under the thumb of the Capitol, the heavy weight of fear. And she could not blame them, but she couldn't do nothing, and the Hunger Games was all she knew. And for the longest time, all she cared to know.

So she raised her hand and volunteered, and smiled and gloated and leered at her peers. Playing the part that she had started playing ages before. Because she had known when she signed up that it, the Academy, would be for life. Quite possibly, literally. She knew there was no way out, and she knew that being "weak" would put her off the track of the Hunger Games, onto the track of being made a Peacekeeper. Which would put her off the track for being able to do something, or at least know that she had tried, that something, anything had been done.

So on the days when she could not make herself angry, she pretended. She became a better liar than any training could have made her, and she felt a spark of hope when she was told to volunteer. Because there, in the arena, she could possibly make a difference. Had she not been able to go, she would have wasted away in her anger, unable to even try to change anything from within District 2. In the Capitol…at least she could try. And if it didn't work, well…

She probably wouldn't live to see it anyway.

She played the part of arrogant Career extremely well. She knew from day one that she had everyone fooled, and that was as she needed it. It got her allies. It got her recognition. It got her sponsors. All of which would help her stay alive, hopefully, long enough to think of something. Anything. Her attitude allowed her to get around the Capitol easier than any of the other tributes, except the other careers. They walked around as they pleased and when told they couldn't go somewhere or another, Clove eventually got them through sheer, dangerous anger, yelling and threatening.

But, unfortunately, the act provided her with enemies, and many of them. Though that wasn't necessarily a bad thing, as she could easily handle her own, but it wasn't good that one of those people was the only one who sparked a tiny glimmer of hope in her chest, in her heart, if she even still had one. Her last feeling besides hollow and disheartened, even resigned.

That hope ignited within her, casting away her doubts that she might do something in the Hunger Games yet. The only problem was that hope wanted nothing to do with her, but as she watched Katniss Everdeen, heard more about her, learned about the star-crossed lovers spin, watched the audience eat it up and watched the mentors speak together in hushed tones, and felt a silent thrill at her 11 rating, the more she realized that she herself would not bring down the Games…it would be another. It would be a greater other, the conspiring nature surrounding the otherness of District 12's campaign setting her thoughts. It would be Katniss. Or Peeta, the other with such charismatic zing, but she suspected, felt, from deep within or from unconscious cues from their mentor's body language, that it was the girl on fire.

Contrary to dampening her spirit, the realization solidified her resolve, even excited her. Being the person, the hero, if one dared to call it that, would be a daunting task, exhausting, being hunted by the Capitol, watched closely, scrutinized. Being a cog, though…a silent partner, wordless warrior, quiet protector…that was something she could do.

She came to accept, day by day, and came to embrace, become at peace with the notion.

For it was something she could do, someone she could be. The unsung martyr. She couldn't be the one to outsmart the Capitol, she didn't know how. But she could, she would, be the person who helped the one girl who quiet conspirators seemed to be betting on, when they thought no one was watching. She would be the invisible partner, and she could end…die, knowing that she had accomplished something big. Small, insignificant, but big in its own right. She would be nothing of importance, a pawn that no one knew about, not even Katniss herself.

She could do that, and she could end with a new purpose, a complete purpose. No glory. No recognition. No importance. Except to, and of, herself.

She supposed that was why. An answer for her own existence, an answer she hadn't realized she was seeking.

That was why, when she saw Katniss and some boy fighting over a bag, a survival bag full of necessities, she didn't hesitate to kill the boy, and, unphased, only pausing for a millisecond to wonder the consequences of throwing her best knife at the terrified tribute, before damning them and purposefully missing, turning away, and letting 12 escape. That was why she didn't volunteer to climb the tree, pretending to slip a bit when prompted by the others. Why she demanded Marvel go check one of his traps, fully aware of Rue's presence and of what would transpire.

Why she purposefully sought out Thresh, sharp eyes finally detecting him before stepping out and throwing her knife at and missing Katniss; taking a deep internal breath, steeling herself for her end as she taunted the girl, loudly, about Rue: explaining how they killed her, how futile and weak and easy to kill she was, despite how Katniss protected her, rambling. Feeling herself get more and more nervous, the sweat on her hands not from the struggle, and forcing the nerves down, waiting for her reckoning. Surprised when it finally came, calling for Cato at the last second, knowing he would come, hoping he would come.

It was why, as her brain shut down, shutting out the world around her and releasing tons upon tons of feel-good chemicals numbing her limbs, she didn't wonder where she was going, if she was going anywhere at all. Which was still preposterous, but the reason escaped her, and it didn't matter anyway, feeling slipping away. It was why she accepted her fate, accepting the crack of her skull as she accepted her role in rebellion. A cog in the machine. A death in the Hunger Games. She took her leap, took her chance.

And, even if it wouldn't be, in her stilled heart, she knew it was worth it.

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**Thoughts? Plausible? Feasible? How'd I do? Reviews always appreciated but I suppose, not necessary. That being said, thank you for reading! :)  
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